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FUNERAL ORATION, 



ON THE 



Clinrarter, life, mh ^SMt §mm 



OF 



HENRY CLAY 



Delivered in Cincinnati, Nov. 2, IS 52, 



AT THE REQUEST OF THE 



CLAy MONUMENTAL ASSOCIATION OF OHIO. 



18' 



BY CHARLES ANDERSON. 



CINCINNATI! 4 

BEN FRANKLIN OFFICE PRINT, 



1852. 



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IHMIMH 



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ORATION. 



Fellow-Countrymen : 

The Time and the Place of Henry Clay's birth seem to 
me to have been singularly if not wonderfully auspicious 
and notable. Let us at the outset, pause to consider these 
co-incidences in some detail. We may discover in them 
quite a clue to his future character. 

He was born on the 12th of April, A. D., 1777, or within 
less than a year after the Declaration of our National 
Independence, July 4th, 1776. Henry Clay and our Na- 
tion, therefore, were strangely coeval. They were simulta- 
neously conceived ! Is not this a most striking co-incidence ? 
Surely, of all the years in a nation's history, its first is that 
in which it seems the fittest that its benefactor-statesman 
should be born. It may be perhaps a romantic conceit ; 
but destiny indeed would seem to have thus provided, co- 
temporaneously with the nation itself, a soul and mind the 
best constituted and adapted to her perpetuation and im- 
provement. Beginning his existence in the fresh moments 
of his country's Independence, he seems to have inhaled 
its spirit with the first air into his infant lungs, as the vital 
principle of his own great nature. And through his long 
public career, from his first vote or speech to that last 
deliberate act of patriotic martyrdom, the truest and fullest 
independence of that native land, was the chief object of 
his daily labors and his nightly prayers. Was it not a 
most appropriate Providence that he and it should have 
been born together ? 



4 

But the place of Mr. Clay's birth is as note-worthy as its 
time. lie was born in Hanover county, Virginia. And 
Hanover county was at once the birth-place and home of 
tliat other IIknrv — Patrick Henry — the patriot of the 
Colonics and of the Revolution ! It was Hanover county, 
which in 17 Go, eleven years before the Declaration of In- 
dependence, elected this her first Henry, to the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, for the express and single purpose of 
opposing the British Stamp Act. And it was he, whilst so 
representing her who, in the words of the author of that 
Declaration, " certainly gave the fu'st impulse to the ball of 
revolution." It was he, that gallant first great commoner 
of this Hanover county, who in the midst of the magnifi- 
cent debate upon his own resolutions against that measure, 
(as we are told by his biographer,) and whilst descanting 
upon the tyranny of the obnoxious act, exclaimed in a 
voice of thunder, and with the look of a God : '' Ci^sar had 
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George 

the Third " " Treasonr cried the speaker. " Treason ! ! 

treason!!!" echoed from every part of the house. Henry 
faltered not for an instant ; but rising to a loftier attitude, 
and fixing on the speaker an eye of the most determined 
fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis — 
" may profit hj their example. If this be treason, make the 
most of it ! " 

It was this same county which in the year 1774, in her 
instructions to her delegates to the Williamsburgh Con- 
vention, published to the world these memorable words : 
" Let it suffice to say once for all, we will never be taxed 
but by our own representatives. This is the great badge 
of freedom." And, (as if the first to foreshadow our 
present blessed Union,) it was she also who startled her 
colonial sisters with these electric words '' United, ive stand — 
divided, we fall! To attain this wished-for Union, we de- 
clare our readiness to sacrifice any lesser interest arising 
from a soil, climate, situation or productions peculiar to us." 



m 

5 

This, be it remembered, was more than two years before the 
Declaration of Independence. Brave and generous old 
Hanover ! 

It was that first Henry of Hanover, who uttered these 
Spartan sentiments : " Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to 
be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid 
it. Almighty God ! I know not what course others may 
take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! " 

It was this same first mover "of the ball of revolution," 
who having assembled the independent company of Hano- 
ver at New Castle, on the 2d of May, 1775, appealed to 
them in his renowned harangue, and told them that " for 
his own part, he was anxious that his native county should 
distinguish itself in this grand career of liberty and glory, 
and that the Hanover Volunteers should thus have an op- 
portunity of striking the first blow in this colony in the 
great cause of American liberty." 

And it was against "a certain Patrick Henry of the 
county of Hanover, and a number of deluded followers 
styling themselves an Independent Company," that the 
British Governor on May 5th, 1775, issued his proclama- 
tion of Treason! These, my fellow-countrymen, were the 
people amongst whom, and such were the place and the 
era in which Henry Clay was born — in the true cradle of 
American Independence, and in the same year in which its 
earliest existence began ! 

It may be, ladies and gentlemen, that I have over- 
estimated the degree of interest which ought to be attached 
to these incidents, of the time, place and circumstances of 
Henry Clay's birth. Yet I cannot forbear making still 
another allusion to them, which is quite as remotely con- 
nected with my subject. Indeed, it is as much for reasons 
personal to myself as for any other, that I venture to intro- 
duce it. It may serve as an apology, if not for my appoint- 
ment, at least for my acceptance of a task to which I am 
so illy suited. 



;q;« 



6 

In the fourth vohime of the American Archives, fourth 
series, page 878, 1 find the following entry : " At a meeting 
of the Hanover Committee, on Monday, the 29th of January, 
A. D. 177C, the following gentlemen were chosen officers 
of the company of regulars, to be raised in this county, 
viz : Richard C. Anderson, captain ; John Anderson, first 
lieutenant ; Wm. Bentley, second lieutenant ; and Robert 
Tompkins, ensign." Signed Wm. Bentlev, Clerk. 

And thus it was that my own father, a native also of 
that same revolutionary Hanover, one of the " deluded fol- 
lowers of her first Henry," styling himself too a " Hanover 
Independent," had just before the birth of this her second 
IIenrv, devoted himself likewise " to the great cause of 
American liberty." And if upon that 12th day of April, 
1777, there existed in the county of Hanover, or in all the 
American colonies, one solitary being more helpless than 
any other, and who therefore more needed the protection 
of that consecrated soldier, or whose protection and preser- 
vation were more essential to the future prosperity and 
glory of his native land, (excepting one alone,) it was that 
inflmt Henry Clay. The plumed father in arms, there and 
then sentinelled and guarded his first cradled slumbers. Is 
it unmeet, that even the youngest and least worthy of his 
sons, after years of earnest and zealous defence of his prin- 
ciples and character whilst aHve and in manhood, should 
here and now thus meditate in tears over the last repose of 
his tomb ? 

I have not, howevei', reverted in either of these instances, 
to the period, place and personages before mentioned, as 
mere narrati\ es from his history. On the contrary, my main 
purpose was to lead you to this inquiry : What effect upon 
the budding character of this baby-boy, had that revolu- 
tionary era, that revolutionary county, and that revolu- 
tionary pioneer — Patrick Henry of Hanover ? They be- 
came the first traditions of his young memory, the first 
aii'ections of his dawning heart. What influences had they 



@" 



—■ ■ '^ ""'" ' "■"" — ^M^— ii^l^— ^l^^jgj 

7 

each and all, in moulding and setting his pliant and plastic 
infant faculties into the firmness and strength of his man- 
hood ? It were inquiring indeed too curiously, to pursue 
on this occasion a philosophical investigation of that con- 
trol which these incidents, as moral causes, must have ex- 
erted upon his future conduct and career. But it is so 
strange a flict as to enforce our attention, that Henry Clay 
became deeply imbued — replete indeed — with the spirit of 
that time and place, and more like Patrick Henry than 
was any other American, or than he was like any other per- 
sonage. In oratory, wherein they also most singularly 
resembled, the two stand in American history alone and 
absolutely beyond and above the reach of rivalry or compe- 
tition. Their moral natures too, were alike ardent and 
resistless. They had the same contagious gallantry of 
word, deed and spirit. Their patriotism was in both an 
absorbing personal passion, as eager as a first love, and as 
vigorous as self-interest. And a spirit of proud and ever- 
present manly independence, was the predominant senti- 
ment and trait of each. And this last feature of Mr. 
Clay's character certainly seems, as I have already said, 
especially appropriate and natural to one born in the year 
of Independence and in that county of old Hanover. 

At the early age of fourteen years, Master Harry left 
the maternal nest— the young fledgling ! — and became a 
sales-boy behind the counter of a small retail store near the 
market house, in Richmond city. What fisticuffs he there 
inflicted and endured, what red-nosed victories he won, 
and what black-and-blue defeats he suffered, before he could 
identify himself with the clothes and the manners of the 
city boys, and so become one of them — or before he had 
satisfied them all , that in any color or of any shape 
or fit, the " old Hanover homespun " was not exactly the 
sort of stuff to be run over or trodden upon — alas ! for 
the omissions of history, we know not. Doubtless they 
were many, and it may be when in conflict with boys 



8 

" not of his size," very grievous to his proud young spirit. 
But his must be a most careless or blunt perception in 
human character, who has not noted what a very independent 
class of youngsters are the '• Chapman Billys," on the mar- 
ket street of a small American city. 

The mother having contracted a second marriage, moved 
with her younger children and new husband, Mr. Watkins, 
into the western wilderness of Kentucky. Henry, after 
a year's experience of men and things as a merchant, en- 
tered the office of the clerk of the High Court of Chance- 
ry. Here, as is often the case where youngsters are thrown 
into such relations with grave business men of any craft or 
profession, he became such a favorite and pet of Chancellor 
Wythe, that their mutual friendship soon ripened into actual 
confidence on the part of the senior, and of an inextinguish- 
able reverence on the part of the boy. Years afterwards, 
whilst imparting to the House of Representatives the 
treasures of wise counsel, which these confidences had dis- 
closed to him, he paid a most earnest and heartfelt tribute 
to the mental and moral worth of this his first friend amongst 
the great. And in private life he never mentioned him, 
but in gratitude and with praise. 

To obviate the necessity of a recurrence to this stage of 
his life, it may be as well to add here, that in this school 
he was subjected to a discipUne and training in those sys- 
tematic habits of business industry which never forsook 
him, and which developed in him those remarkable powers 
of so closely observing human character, that 

" He looked quite through the deeds of men." 

And in this situation too, it should be observed, as we 
pass, that his duties and daily associations tended, in an 
unusual degree, to cultivate and increase his natural bias 
and previous progress towards a thorough independence 
of character. An orphan, hundreds of miles distant from 
his mother or other kindred; an associate of men of estab- 

^ m 



9 

lished business and of high reputations from the beginning 
of his boyhood, acting upon all the responsibilities and selt- 
reliance of manhood — his every condition in life seems to 
have combined providentially with his native temperament 
to promote the developement of this quality. 

About six months before attaining his majority, he volun- 
tarily abandoned all the attractions of this refined sphere 
of social life so charming to young men, and migrated also 
to this the then 'far West,' and to Kentucky, yet the 
' dark and bloody ground ' of pioneer tradition. 

It would be needless to remark to his cotemporary 
pioneers if they were present, that this act of migration 
itself was at that period invariably considered as a conclu- 
sive proof of great personal enterprise and independence 
of character. Such spirits alone were capable of the sacri- 
fice of the real comforts left behind, and equal in positive 
courage to the dangers apprehended before. To us of this 
age who were born here, or to others who see the West as 
it now is, certainly this statement appears almost incredible. 
It is nevertheless literally true. 

It may serve to exempHfy those changes in the standard 
of money values, as well as of other things, which are con- 
tinually taking place in civilized communities, to note the 
fact, that Henry Clay's most sanguine expectations of ulti- 
mate success in his profession, only looked timidly to the 
possibility of making "as much as £100 Virginia money 
per year." And to obtain this pittance, he dared, at such 
an age and under such circumstances, a competition with a 
bar as able in proportion to its number, as could now be 
found in the United States. 

An immediate and signal success in his profession, soon 
brought him before the attention of all, as being peculiarly 
adapted to public hfe. Accordingly, he at once entered upon 
the career of politics, and in so far as his own County, Dis- 
trict or State were concerned, it never failed him in a single 
step of his exalted ascent. From the first moment of his 
2 



10 

settlement at Lexington, there was never a station for 
which he was a candidate, to which he was not certainly 
and easily elected. Whoever else misjudged and con- 
demned him, his neighbors and liis fellow-Kentuckians — 
they who knew him longest and knew him best — neither 
lla^iged nor faltered in their constant approbation and their 
zealous support. And here stands in history', a monument 
to his fame more durable than bronze or marble. Fifty 
years of unshaken confidence by a raral constituency, un- 
surpassed in any age or country for right-mindedness and 
sound, unaffected morality, can leave no doubt in any 
rational mind, tliat its object was one entirely worthy of 
such faith. 

From this period in his life he has been literally before 
the world. And the world too has taken note of his pre- 
sence and elevation. Henceforth, therefore, I shall make 
no reference to the events of his life, for the purpose of 
specifying their occurrence. I may occasionally and infor- 
mally mention some of them, solely as known and undenied 
facts, with a view further to exemplify or illustrate my 
own theory of his character. And as my wish is, in all sim- 
plicity and truthfulness, like a fjiithfal portrait-painter, to 
present as just and perfect a resemblance of my original 
as my powers of perception and language can observe and 
depict, I will at once state distinctly, what I suppose to 
have been the moral and mental features and parts, which 
composed this very extraordinary but well proportioned 
whole. This order of presenting my subject, will certainly 
diminish that rhetorical interest, which the surprise of sud- 
den conclusions or more highly finished views would excite. 
But these general sketches, like anatomical drawings, 
although destitute of both superficial likeness and beauty, 
will furnish clearer and more defined images of the frame- 
work or skeleton of the character to be represented. And 
both time and art would fail me in any effort at a more 
complete portrait. 



■«i 



11 

Some of the leading traits of Mr. Clay's moral character 
might be inferred from the view which has already been 
presented, since those qualities which it is necessary to 
specify are generally the elements or the incidents of 
Independence . But in him they were more conspicuous and 
remarkable than mere constituents or accessaries usually 
are. They were so strong and well defined in his nature, 
as to have become themselves generic and elementary. 
For a personage could well have all the component quaHties 
of independence in a far less degree than Mr. Clay possessed 
them, and still be truly and even strongly independent. In 
truth, I admit that he possessed this quality in excess. 

lie was then, during life, a man of singular truthfulness 
of thought and speech; of incorruptible honesty in all his 
private dealings, and of unstained faith in all his pubhc 
pledges or obligations; of pre-eminent moral and physical 
courage, whether doing or suffering — active and passive; 
of undaunted perseverance and resolution in difficulties the 
most threatening and under defeats the most disastrous and 
overwhelming ; and of great warmth of attachment to prin- 
ciples as well as to persons. He had also an iron will, and 
like all men of great minds who perceive clearly and feel 
strongly, he seemed — nay, zvas quite positive and arbitrary 
towards the more obtuse and impassive crowd, which it is 
ever necessary either to draw or to drive. In this respect 
as in a great many others, he was peculiarly like his great 
adversary. Gen. Jackson. But the whole world knows 
all this. There are other qualities however, which were 
equally distinctive in his composition, but which are not so 
generally known because, from their sphere and modes of 
exercise, they do not appear so conspicuously in pubHc view. 
Of course too, the evidences of their existence must also 
be less familiar to the mass of his countrymen. Amongst 
these less known virtues, Mr. Clay had habitually great 
constancy of faith in his friends, and was always the last to 
suspect them of treachery, or of any other want of principle. 



12 

A yet nobler trait of his disposition was an ever-ready 
forgiveness of insult or injury to himself, whenever there 
was the slightest reason to believe that the offender was 
afterwards disposed to do him justice. Often has he for- 
given and again tiiken into his friendship men, who had the 
most deeply injured him in public estimation , or who had 
grievously insulted him in private life. Towards detected 
and convicted dishonesty or meanness, whether exerted 
against others or himself, he was, it must be confessed, not 
only implacable and violently indignant, but actively and 
sometimes almost ferociously vindictive. On such occasions, 
he knew no pohcy or prudence in speech or manner, but 
became wholly ungovernable in his passions. His natural 
combativeness and love of the right seemed to overwhelm 
his general tenderness and kindliness of feeling. Another 
apparent exception to his magnanimity and spirit of forgive- 
ness, occurred in those instances in which he thought any 
attempt had been made to tyrannise over him, or in any 
way to encroach upon his rights of personal independence. 

In such cases, he was as persistent and obstinate in a quarrel 
as Hotspur represents himself to have been in a bargain. 

He would 

" Cavil on the ninth part of a hair." 

Generally, his pride of character could brook no crowing or 
muflliug of feathers or picking of straws about him. A 
genuine game-cock himself, he could live in amity with his 
equals or inferiors, but he never acknowledged — as I believe 
he never met, either in England or America — a superior. 

It has been almost an invariable custom, not only upon 
occasions like this, but for many years during their lives, to 
institute comparisons between the great American senators. 
Clay, Calhoun and Webster. They have been justly called 
the great triumvirate of American intellect. And this 
common supremacy over all their cotemporary countrymen, 
may have naturally suggested to their respective friends 



13 

this comparison, for the purpose of awarding the palm 
between themselves. Besides, for the purpose of explicit 
analysis and description of an unknown character, it is of 
course very convenient to compare it with a 5>tandard char- 
acter, which may be well understood alike by the hearers 
and speaker. And in all metaphisical exercises too, it is far 
easier and more intelligible to say what a mental faculty is 
like than to explain what it is. With these views only, do 
I follow this precedent; for in my judgment, three minds 
of equal eminence, and occupied in the same arena at the 
same time, could scarcely be found more unlike than these. 
And to the question, so often and so vainly mooted, which 
of the three was the greatest mind? I have often thought 
the child's method of answering the question, "who it loved 
the more, father or mother?" would present the most 
sensible solution in the case. To such interrogatories, in 
the confusion of its evenly-balanced affections, or in its 
effort to estimate sentiments of a somewhat different nature, 
the ingenuous prattler blushingly murmurs — '■'•Both!'''' So 
I think in this question. In that mental faculty which 
pre-eminently distinguished either one of these illustrious 
men, neither of his rivals was so endowed as to surpass many 
other cotemporaries in our country, and much less to equal 
him. And in that power of mind which predominated 
amongst the faculties of either of them, he not only far 
excelled the other two, but all of his countrymen whose 
minds have been subjected to public scrutiny. 

Mr. Calhoun's leading trait of mind was a searching and 
vigorous power of analysis. His natural tendency towards 
abstruse if not metaphysical studies, was greatly strength- 
ened by the circumstance that his lot was cast amongst 
a people singularly addicted to such speculations. The 
southern Americans — and especially perhaps the Virginians, 
from abundant leisure and other causes, more than any other 
people with whom I have associated or of whom I have 
read, except the Scotch and Germans — most habitually 



14 

exercise and disport themselves with nice distinctions and 
generalizations. Mr. Calhoun's mind was of this order. 
But it was the first of its class. His was no hair-splitting 
in trifling and vain disputations. But with the earnestness 
and solemnity of a profound intellect conscious of great 
powers and therefore responsible for their just use, he zeal- 
ously and actively employed them in great and as he 
believed most vital questions — the fundamental and essential 
principles of government and of public rights. And it is 
doubtful whe ther, in this department of republican life and 
duty, he had his equal amongst his countrymen of any era. 
In addition to that invariable impulse to its own exertion 
which every predominant faculty necessarily creates, an 
event in his poUtical career called forth and ever kept 
his peculiar powers in a most bitter and morbid exercise. 
He was displaced, you will remember, from his natural 
rank of priority in his party, by an intrigue of a man far 
more skilled in such arts than an earnest and guileless 
nature like his ever was or ever could have been. And 
being thus foiled in his high aim of presidential and national 
honors — and it will be long ere our country will have a fitter 
or better president than he would have been — he devoted 
himself as if by superstitious rites, to the alternate propaga- 
tion and defence of his special political doctrine, which at 
once suited and required such mental traits as I have 
ascribed to him. Every one here knows, with what vast and 
varied powers of logic — with what honest, earnest, single- 
hearted zeal, yet with what 'one-ideaed' pertinacity — this pure 
and great man pursued his favorite dogmas, and to what 
extraordinary lengths and at what unseasonable and inap- 
propriate times and places he urged them. With him every 
subject, however well it may have been started in its natural 
and straight-forward direction, was soon slyly twisted or 
forcibly whirled into "States' Rights and Nullification." 
It is a melancholy thought, but I have sometimes suspected 
this most powerful and exalted mind, by reason of its morbid 



■® 



15 

and chronic excitement, to have been almost upon the 
verge of monomania. 

How unlike him in mind and temper was Mr. Clay ! 
His natural inclination was with the real and palpable world. 
And his early education and pursuits, though a Virginian, 
only strengthened that tendency. Mr. Clay scarcely ever 
in his Hfe discussed a question of constitutional philology, 
and never one of metaphysical distinctions. Mr. Calhoun 
always and to a great extent employed his mind in such 
studies and exercises, and since 1829 he rarely discussed any 
other. The one, a practical man, worked amongst and 
by men, upon things equally real. The other, severing all 
bonds which united him with men through their ordinary 
interests or sympathies, devoted his extraordinary reasoning 
powers exclusively to the abstruse generalities of a special 
subject. 

Although quite as ambitious of that crowning honor 
of American fame as Mr. Calhoun was, and although stirred 
by far more ungovernable natural passions than he, yet 
under like and even more bitter disappointments, Mr. Clay's 
remarkably sound and clear judgment assisted his more 
placable and sanguine temperament to assuage the bitter 
ness of his chagrin, and to wipe out all the sadness of its 
memory. And again and again did he return, like another 
Camillus, with a healthy and cheerful spirit to the hard 
service and barren honors of an unappreciating and ungrate- 
ful countiy, and of his whole country too — whilst, as we 
have seen, with far less original violence of impassioned 
and resentful disappointment, the great and noble southron 
settled into a sullen, moody and almost misanthropic seclu- 
sion from national affairs during the remainder of his life. 
The moral constitution of Mr. Clay was certainly better 
organised in this respect, than that of his southern rival. 

With Daniel Webster, the comparison will present more 
points of resemblance, though still very few. Like the 
others, he was also a man of indefatigable industry. And 



-^m 



16 

like ])olh, (Mr. Clav always, Mr. Calhoun ia the first half 
of his manhood,) he was a man of afl'uirs, or as we say, of 
])usiness . But I much doubt whether — either in comparison 
with his own other traits and habits, or with those of many 
otlier men — Mr. Webster was ever especially and pre- 
eminently distinguished in this respect, as was Mr. Clay. 
The spheres of Mr. Webster's industry in early life were 
wholly, and even in his latter years, essentially different 
from Mr. Clay's chief fields of labor. Webster's boyhood 
and youth were ardently given up to the acquisition of a 
various and profound scholastic education, whilst the subject 
of our reflections — a mill-boy, a grocer's salesman and a 
deputy clerk of court, during the correspondent periods 
of his life — was subjecting himself to the drudgeries of 
systematic labor, and to the study of men and things. 
And each in his own sphere, consequently attained a 
superiority which no lapse of time or change of circum- 
stances ever reduced within the range of competition by 
the other. Mr. Webster was always infinitely beyond Mr. 
Clay in scholarship. Mr. Clay just as flir surpassed him 
in his aptitude to business, in his knowledge of mankind 
and his control over living men. It is almost needless to 
say that the latter is much the rarer and incomparably the 
higher order of faculties. A departed congressional friend 
of both, (Hon. Joseph H. Crane,) used to exemplify this 
superiority by describing Webster as resembling some 
black-visaged genius, implicitly but somewhat moodily fol- 
lowing the finger of Clay, as if it were the wand of a fair 
enchanter who had conjured up and now directed his vast 
powers at his own absolute will. 

And after their entrance into professional and public life, 
their occupations were still very diverse. For many years, 
Webster was wholly occupied by legal studies and legal 
practice. Until 1829, indeed the law may be said to have 
been his only pursuit. Politics was an accident with him. 
He had acquired a national fame as a great mind, engaged 



'3i 



17 

in the Law, long before he held a seat in Congress. And 
although such a mind must distinguish itself wherever it 
may appear, still his most undiscriminating admirers must 
admit, that in the House of Representatives, he did nothing 
at all commensurate with his previous professional and 
literary fame. The reason is obvious. He was only a 
great mind, a great scholar, a great lawyer, sitting, not 
acting in Congress. Other qualities are indispensable in 
that sphere. And Daniel Webster was then, at least, 
neither a politician nor a statesman. 

Mr. Clay, on the other hand, entered at the beginning 
of manhood, with all his native vigor and all a Kentuckian's 
enthusiasm, into political life. And from that time until his 
death at the Capitol, the affairs of his country were his 
affairs, and the public service his arena of labor and ambition. 
The Law, like his pleasures, were a variety and relaxation. 
It is very true and very singular, that he never relinquished 
the regular practice of his home circuit for a period of more 
than fifty years. Still, the main thing with him, was politics. 
His profession became from the beginning, a mere incident. 
He was, therefore, first a politician by profession ; then a 
statesman by attainment. He was never a lawyer, in the 
sense and to the degree that Mr. Webster was; nor was 
Webster ever a statesman, in the sense and to the degree, 
that Mr. Clay was. The latter was by no means, an indif- 
ferent lawyer, when compared with ordinary standards. In 
truth, he was far better read in the learning of his Profes- 
sion, and infinitely more skilful and able before both courts 
and juries, than a host of very celebrated mere lawyers. 
But, he was not a great Lawyer ; Mansfield, Marshall or 
Webster being the standard. And Webster was not a 
great statesman, either as to knowledge or efficiency, if 
Pitt, Jefferson, or Clay were in the comparison. Mr. 
Clay has left no legal land-mark and monument, like the 
argument in the Dartmouth College case. Mr. Webster 
never, in his life, originated, nor carried through the process 

3 ^ 



18 

of legislation, a single public measure of importance. 
Whilst the instances of such authorship and parliamentary 
abilities in Mr. Clay's public service — and often in the face 
of an adverse party-majority, and in opposition to the 
earnest wishes of hostile Executives, at one time almost 
autocratic, at another secret, ingenious and sly, and at 
another treacherous and corrupt — are too numerous and 
notorious for recital. 

Our volumes of Congressional Debates are full of great 
lawyer-like arguments, or wise and scholarly commentaries 
by the Massachusetts Senator, upon the public measures, 
which his great rival, or others, had devised and brought 
forward. But he originated nothing himself, for the interest 
of his country, in all the many embarrassments of Peace 
and War, of Prosperity and Adversity, in which, during his 
long congressional career, he had so often beheld her. 
^ In Mr. Webster's diplomatic offices, he has been more 
successful, in his exhibi tion of statesmanship. Though, even 
in this department, he has been generally, if not greatly 
overrated. And, as to the celebrated Hulseman corres- 
pondence, like most of his other diplomatic writings, he 
rather performs the part of a great advocate than of a 
sound International Jurist and Minister of State. The most 
that can be said of it, in my poor and single opinion, is, 
that it was an able defence, in exceedingly bad taste, of an 
utterly indefensible proceeding of his predecessor. Call 
him "Spy," or "Commissioner," or whatever epithet or title 
you may, Mr. Mann was in Austria, under false pretences, 
enjoying her hospitalities, through the deceits of a 
passport, which reitresented him as coming and remaining 
there, for one purpose, whilst it was really a very different 
one; passing, as a private, neutral, peaceable person, whilst, 
upon certain contingencies he held a secret commission, from 
the American Government, (as the Austrians considered it) 
to foment Rebellion, to encourage War and Bloodshed, and 
to incite a dismemberment of that Empire. The nature of 



fe< 



19 

the whole transaction is sufficiently indicated by the fact, 
that neither this Government nor the Commissioner could 
venture to disclose the real purposes of his mission. In a 
like case, in our Country, if the federal Courts in Charleston 
or Boston, should discharge such a British 'Commissioner' 
on a regular trial, there sometimes meets another Tribunal, 
under whose irregular and summary verdict, he would 
assuredly have met at least the certain death of a 'spy.' It 
is the very absurdity, the mockery of fanatical enthusiasm 
in personal idolatry, to print on satin and translate into all 
languages, or to enact any other extravagance of word, or 
deed, over this most ingenious and eloquent, but bragging 
defence of a proceeding so Un-American and un-republican. 
I say nothing to disparage Col. Mann, who is represented 
as a very worthy, sensible gentleman, and a very zealous 
and efficient officer. Nor was the fault, to the least 
degree, with Mr. Webster, but in that miserable cause, whidi. 
others had left him, to defend. But, if our Government 
wishes to "intervene," let it in the name of all fairness and 
manliness, do so openly. If she desire to send succor or 
sympathy to Hungary, let her accredit her commissioner 
to Pesth, not smuggle her spy into Vienna. Thank heaven ! 
for his better opportunities, the fame of Daniel Webster 
rests on no such foundation as this. In the same field of 
discussion, his part in the Ashburton negotiations, and his 
correspondence upon the Quintuple Treaty, being topics 
worthy of him, evince a far higher order of mental power 
and moral courage. I can not think so favorably, however, 
of his letters in the more recent questions, concerning our 
Fisheries and the Lobos Islands. 

To return to a brief comparison, in this respect, of him- 
self and Mr. Clay, as Secretary of State; it will have been 
anticipated, from what has already been said, that a prefer- 
ence of Mr. Clay, in this department of the National service 
is also inevitable. Not only do I think that Mr. Clay's 
administration of the duties of this office were, generally 



b:« 



20 

more a))le and exhibited more statesmanship, but that, 
(uontrary to what I should have myself supposed or inferred, 
ihnn their general traits of mind,) Mr. Clay has left a 
specimen of his Di[)lomatic talents, which is not only 
superior, in its substance, but in its style, as a composition 
for State i)apers, to any similar production of Webster. I 
allude to iMr. Clay's Instructions to the Commissioners to 
the Congress at Panama. 

Mr. Clay has, however, made his mistakes, also, upon 
International questions. In this opinion again, I expect to 
be alone; but surely, as a measure of philanthropy or 
of statesmanship, all his masterly arguments, his thrilling 
appeals, his ceaseless zeal and his Herculean labors, so 
indefatigable and so protracted, in behalf of the Independence 
of the South American Republics, have been, by the actual 
results, shown to have been entirely nugatory and superflu- 
ous. It is a remarkable fact, that none of that Race of 
People on our Continent, excepting only those who are 
subject to Monarchical Governments, are of the least use to 
themselves or the world, in a moral, intellectual, industrial, 
social, democratic, or any other point of view. Cuba and 
Brazil include the only portions of those people, who exhibit 
even the slightest indications of present prosperity or future 
progress. Mr. Clay was in error in his hopes and expecta- 
tions of this race. And his clear Reason, for once, failed in 
regard to their cause being that of genuine Republicanism 
and Civilization. And John Randolph, for once in a matter 
of common sense, in his whole life time, was eminently right. 
They were not, as they are not, fitted for self-government. 
We, with all our history of education and experiences in 
morals and common sense, public and personal — British, 
Colonial and National — are scarcely now schooled into that 
competency. Let Plibustiers clamor by day, or plot by 
night, as they will, it is simply a slander upon Republican 
Institutions, to assert that any such people are prepared 
for them. 



!6'. 



21 

With Mr. Clay, however, (as it is to be hoped with some 
of these more modern and more lawless propagandists,) it 
was that ever-ruling sentiment of independence in himself 
and love of it, in others, which misled him, into his vain sym- 
pathies and labors, in behalf of these Republics, as well as 
of Greece. His error, being one wholly of degree not of 
principle, is not all inexplicable. On the contrary, with his 
sanguine, moral constitution, the only wonder in regard to 
him is, that in the earlier years of his life, his clear and 
vigorous Understanding could so generally have over- 
mastered, or guided the impetuosity of such passions. 

His Judgment and his Impulses however rightly — nay, 
gloriously — concurred in the promotion of the highest 
interests and highest honor of his Country, when they con- 
trolled him into those almost super-human efforts, in favor 
of the declaration of War against England, and into the 
advocacy of all those measures requisite to sustain and to 
prosecute it with vigor. It may be safely said, that if that 
infont in the Hanover cradle had there perished, this war 
would not have been declared. I am sure that impartial 
readers of history will, hereafter, admit that he compelled 
Congress to declare, and the Executive and the people to 
fight that war. So close was the contest between its advo- 
cates and opponents, so organized, intellectual and resolute 
the opposition, and so extraordinary were the natural abili- 
ties, and the industry, perseverance and ardor, which he 
exerted, in urging that brave blow. Jupiter, kindled and 
aroused by the spirit of War, into all the height and heat 
of his stupendous passions, hurling from Mount Olympus his 
flaming and hissing thunder-bolts against his foes, foreign 
and domestic, would scarce present too extravagant an 
image of his fiery assaults upon Great Britain and her 
American sympathisers and apologists. Of the glorious 
results of that War, on land and at sea; immediate and 
direct; upon our National prosperity, agricultural, manu- 
facturing, maritime and commercial; upon our National 



22 

Glory, past and present, and yet to come, I shall not pause 
to make comment. His instrumentality in the production 
of these wondrous results and their self-evident consequence 
from the "Late War," are so obvious, that all his eulogists 
have urged them, and all his adversaries have admitted 
them, long years ago. Besides, they have been often more 
ably and eloquently presented, than I could do, were I to 
make the effort. My pearl-divings must be nearer the shore, 
and in the shallower soundings of this wide ocean of History. 

A similar condition of the public sentiment and popular 
knowledge, will justify me in passing without formal notice, 
or arguments of advocacy or defence, all those public 
measures of jioUty and philanthropy, which he originated 
and urged upon the minds of the National Legislature and 
the People, with such distinguished zeal and eft'ect. Merely 
as instances, not only of his great abihties and influence, 
but also of his extraordinary industry, I cite his early and 
continued advocacy — of Governmental protection to Ameri- 
can Manufactures; of Internal Improvements, and his 
American System into which he perfected those measures; 
of African Colonization ; of that scheme, whose purposes 
were kindred to all, the Distribution of the sales of the 
Public Lands, and of his three "Compromise Acts." Of 
these he was not only the author ; but the success of each 
of them was chiefly attributed to his genius, industry and 
self-sacrificing nature. Well has he been called the " Great 
Pacificator." And whatever may be thought, of the right 
or the wrong of these several measures, I imagine none 
would now deny the nature and extent of his instrument- 
ality in them, as I have described it. As for myself, I feel 
bound to say, that I still heartily approve his course in 
each of them. 

It will suffice, here again, to ask your attention only to 
that ruling principle, which, in most of these cases, either 
stimulated him in their origination, or in the zealous and 
continued advocacy of them — his special devotion to the 



m 



23 

general cause of Human and of National Independence. It 
may be an interesting fact, to such as do not closely observe 
the dates of events, to call attention, in this connection, to 
the circumstance, that Mr. Clay's very first commitment of 
his opinions and political fortunes, was a most signal display 
of his two most conspicuous traits — that undaunted inde- 
pendence of mind in himself, and a most ardent and philan- 
thropic sympathy with the rights of Liberty in all Mankind. 
His first vote and speech were in favor of Negro-Emancipa- 
tion in Kentucky. And such was the unpopularity of this 
proposition in the State, at that time and afterwards, that 
not even Mr. Clay's unequalled abilities — nothing but that 
respect and confidence which his evident integrity, and 
especially his independence, extorted from its opponents — 
prevented his being howled, by the accustomed outcries, into 
the seclusion and consequent oblivion of private life. But 
even a young Lion at bay, is ever an object of respect, as well 
to his hunters as their bloodhounds, whilst the lower orders 
of animals are mercilessly speared, ridden over and forgotten. 
Here, again, Mr. Clay's moral nature — in its natural 
season — ruled and guided the faculties of his Reason and 
his Uaderstanding. As the latter, however, acquired gradu- 
ally, their just supremacy with the lapse of his years, he 
came to see the impossibihty of present success for that meas- 
ure in his own State, as well as the utter Quixotism of the 
scheme of general Emancipation,or Abolition of Slavery, in the 
United States. Still, the idea of himself beholding his dear 
Kentucky, her Whites and her Blacks alike — disenthralled, the 
former from the blight and the latter from the sufferings of 
Slavery, never wholly forsook him. The Hope, at least, 
lingered within the inmost and tenderest recesses of his 
fond heart, like the gentle memory of a long vanished, per- 
haps long buried, ' first love.' Was not this, at any rate, 
and as a Romance, a noble sentiment, to be thus nourished, 
so long and so affectionately, amidst the dry and rough 
cares of this hard, business-world of ours? 



m 



m 
24 

It becomes again convenient, to resort to our com- 
parison to elucidate our tojiic. Let us resume that method. 
I had said, that \\'ebster was a schohir. I am told, that 
even this truth has been denied. I shall not pause, to an- 
swer such carping criticismi In the sense, understood be- 
tween my audience and myself, he was a great scholar. Of 
course, also, his mind had an innate aptitude for profound 
scholarship, He was calm, patient, painstaking. Although 
possessing a quick and most retentive memory; very pow- 
ful Reasoning faculties ; and inferior only to Marshall and 
Calhoun, in the faculty of analysing and reducing compound 
propositions, to their simple elements, yet he was slow and 
deliberate in his researches, and most mature in his reflec- 
tions. Such minds, inevitably, attain great scholarship in 
any field of human knowledge, to which they may betake 
themselves. 

But even superior to all these points of pre-eminence, 
was his Imagination. I am not sure I shall find many to 
agree with me in this opinion. Indeed, in their blind rage 
of detraction, malignant critics have charged Webster with 
plagiarism in this branch of his productions. It would be 
better, if they could specify that writer, past or present, in a 
living or dead Lanj^uage, who could afford to spare him, or 
from whom, he need to take, thought or simile ! And, I do 
believe, that this, after all, in its highest and widest sphere, 
was his great faculty. And not only did he exceed, in it, 
all senatorial rivals, but all American Poets, (of verse or 
prose,) of any age. To me, in some of his passages, he 
seems almost Miltonic. The Beautiful and the Grand of 
Thought do so commingle, that the hearer or reader can 
scarcely say, wlietlier he is more charmed into rapture, by 
the loveliness of his visions, or startled and stilled into terror, 
by his solemn and awful sublimity. The child may have the 
same mixed emotions, in beholding the varied and brilliant 
colors of the Kainbow, encircling and tinging, with their 
prismatic radiance, the dusky fringe of the storm-cloud. 



L- 



25 

Attendant upon this dominant faculty of Webster's mind, 
(as indeed it commonly is,) was a most keen and lively 
sense of the ludicrous. Imagination and Wit are naturally 
twin-sisters. Very frequently the latter, like any other 
rude and mirth-provoking girl, is so concealed and kept out 
of company by the real or the false family dignity, that the 
outside world becomes ignorant of their being almost invari- 
able concomitants. And few are aware of the very wonder- 
ful powers of Daniel Webster in this respect, for he hab- 
itually suppressed their exhibition in public. But I must 
offer this my single testimony upon the point ; that I, at 
least, have never met his equal, either in wit or humor, 
as exhibited in his unrestrained, private and social life. 
I can imagine no parallel by which to describe the variety 
and peifection of these powers, unless, in truth, we could 
fancy Shakspeare again alive in flesh and spirit, and talking 
out his own infinite dramas, character by character, and all to 
the life. So complete and charming in this respect and gene- 
rally, were his colloquial powers ! Mr. Clay was exceedingly 
witty, humorous and entertaining in his social circles. But he 
was by no means the equal of Mr. Webster, either in de- 
scriptive anecdote, or in his power over the risible suscepti- 
bilities of his company, when the latter should chance to 
unbend himself and dispel from brow and hps his scowl of 
dark dignity. 

In Fancy and Imagination, Mr. Clay was also very une- 
qual to Mr. Webster. The former was, in truth, by no 
means, remarkable in these faculties. He had enough o^ 
them, for the practical and indispensable purposes, of illus- 
trating his thoughts and arguments, so far as to make them 
clearer or more memorable. But, he did not often, like 
Webster, lend any new charm of shape or coloring, to the 
body of his ideas by figurative or poetical similes. 

In the power of Reasoning closely, compactly, in order 
and to the point in debate, I do not know that Mr. Clay was 
at all inferior to Mr. Webster. The former was so industri- 

i I 



!9f. 



2G 

ous in his acquisition of f;icts, as a basis of argument; so 
sound in his perception of the true relation between the 
cause and its effect ; so entirely earnest and honest, in the 
declaration of this truth; so interested and absorbed, both 
during his preparations and his arguments, in the impor- 
tance of the topic under consideration, — that he was always, 
as a debator, and wholly irrespective of his oratorical abili- 
ties, supremely effective in all liis discussions. Pteasoning, 
indeed, constituted a most unusual proportion of his speeches. 
Logic was ever their chief staple. But the general opinion 
certainly is, that Webster's arguments possessed more in- 
trinsic weight of truth. I do not see, how this could well be, 
in so far as their political, or their legislative efforts were con- 
cerned. Very rarely did Mr. Clay, (who generally began 
the discussions, as he had generally originated the meas- 
ures,) leave much opportunity either to others, or to Mr. 
Webster, (whose more prudent habit was, to appear in the 
later stages, of the later discussions,) to discover and add 
many arguments of real weight and worth, after him. So 
full and solid was Mr. Clay's method of presenting and 
answering all the arguments, upon any question ! 

But in forensic argumentations, and especially in the 
power of statement and in Academical and Anniversary, or 
Festival discourses, certainly Webster's efforts are not only 
expressed in terser and purer English, than any other Ameri- 
can's, but they equal those of any other writer or speaker 
of the mother -tongue, present or past. And they possess 
a breadth of view and an intrinsic preciousness of value, which 
quite justify that epithet of "massive " when applied to his 
Intellect. They almost rival the grandeur of Edmund 
Burke. These, his nobler thoughts, seem to me, however, 
to be the declared results of a previous, or unexpressed 
train of reasoning, rather than reasoning itself Or, else, 
they are those simple and sublime illustrations of such 
truths, which, whilst they are the efforts of the Imagination, 
yet perform the highest office of Reason. 



fe- 



27 

In these regards and in written eloquence, Mr. Clay was 
not equal to Mr. Webster. His style was, by no means, 
so pithy and picturesque. Though in respect to his written 
style, I think he is most egregiously misapprehended. It 
has been quite the fashion of shallow, or of careless critics 
and observers, to allege, that Mr. Clay's style of composi- 
tion was neither pure, scholarly nor elegant: and that 
his argumentation, was neither orderly, analytical or pro- j 
found. Speaking respectfully ; I think this is all cant. It 
is very probable that, in his earliest manhood, when sud- 
denly elevated into stations, usually far above the reach of 
persons of that stage in life, he did exhibit before his then 
better educated and perhaps hypercritical colleagues, the 
usual redundancy of youth, and the usual bad literary taste 
of a limited scholarship. But he most rapidly obliterated 
all these inequahties of original education. And he never 
was otherwise, than eminent for his argumentative abilities, 
in any body, or before any audience. Except Mr. Webster, 
I know no American orator, whose diction in speaking, or 
in ^vritten compositions, excelled his. His Speeches and 
Letters, so far from being a cause of detraction of his pos- 
thumous fame, in purity of Grammar and eloquence of 
Rhetorick, quite come up to the highest American or Eng- 
lish Standards. And nothing but that almost universal 
habit, of making too much allowance, for the effects of his 
voice and manner, when actually speaking, could have ever, 
led SQch numbers, into this injustice of opinion, in regard' 
to his style of writing. It is very true, that fluency of 
tongue and musical intonations of voice, can do much to 
conceal a defective order and collocation of words. But, it 
is not, at all, true, (as so many exclaim,) that a good speaker 
cannot be a good writer. Nor is this proposition true, in 
the specific instance of Henry Clay. 

In the Understanding and especially in that most un- 
common division of it, which is miscalled ' Common sense,' 
Mr. Clay was greatly superior to either of his Senatorial 



@- 



28 

rivals, or perhaps to any other of our public men, since 
Washington. Witii all his ardor and quickness of temper- 
ament, he was endowed by Nature with a most healthy and 
reliable judgment of men and events. His perception of 
the particular motives and of the general dispositions of 
men, with whom, he held social or business intercourse, was 
especially acute and accurate. This quality, which is not 
always, if often, an attribute of a great mind, is, neverthe- 
less, wholly indispensable to the head of a popular party. 
And he had it, in an eminent degree. Otherwise, he could 
not have battled so long and so formidably, against such 
odds, as were, from the beginning, opposed to him. 

Sound and safe Judgment of the effects of public meas- 
ures, in a nation having vast and varied interests, is, how- 
ever, one of the most exalted faculties, with which the 
human mind ever has been, or can be endowed. It presup- 
poses accurate and various knowledge of public affairs, and 
consequently, a possession of all the faculties, requisite to 
that acquisition ; as great powers of Attention, Memory, 
Perception and Combination. So far as I have learned by 
reading, or have observed in experience of human charac- 
ter, it is, in some form or phase, an invariable adjunct of 
all real Genius. Homer, Shakspeare, and Byron more ex- 
celled in it, than in their grand Imaginations. It was the 
chiefest faculty of Cesar, Napoleon, and Washington. 
And this solid power was the peculiar gift of Nature, to 
Henry Clay. It was his highest talent — superior, 
to his Eloquence, his Humor, or his admirably adjusted 
Moral organization. He not only knew the wants of his 
countrymen, better than any other living man, (which is 
itself, a vast knowledge,) but he was a better judge of what 
they were willing to accept, as he was also of the means ne- 
cessary to change their inclinations, when they were unwil- 
ling. 

Of Mr. Clay, as an Orator, all the world has heard much. 
In the general opinion, he was more an Orator, than a 



^m 



•@ 



@- 



■Si 



29 

Statesman! As may have been already inferred, I dissent 
also from this judgment. I firmly believe, that, if he had 
been bereft of that fluent and facile tongue ; — of that 
deep-toned, resounding, yet mellow voice; of that most 
variable eye, now archly looking a sly witticism, now melt- 
ing with a tearful tenderness of expression, and now, 
kindling and glowing with a most fiery, heroic, Lion-like 
gleam of proud and rageful indignation; of those mobile 
and pliant features, so suddenly and magically flowing into 
new and changing forms, as his fresh, successive Thoughts 
and Feelings, came trooping from Brain and Heart, to be made 
visible in the mirror of his various face, and vocal in the 
music of his mighty speech; if he had been born blind and 
dumb, hard featured and graceless, he would have still been, 
as he was, in all these great respects, immeasurably superior 
to all our public men ! Only our human insight would have 
been, thereby, deprived of those natural means of perceiv- 
ing the hidden truth. The diamond may, nevertheless, be 
flashing around its dew-like brilliance, in the depths of its 
Orient cavern ; though our eyes may not perceive the clue 
to its lone recess. 

But what sort of an Orator was Henry Clay? It would 
be an easy thing, (as it is usual on like occasions,) to 
monopolise the whole magazine of praises, and to declare 
him the greatest of his own, or any other age or country. 
But, in our times, we require, that such boldness of asser- 
tion, shall be supported by some proof. And this rank is, 
by no means, so universally believed or admitted, that I 
could here make such an assertion, (if I were so inclined,) 
without, at least, designating some of the constituents of 
that supremacy. 

Since the universal application of the art of printing to 
all purposes and pursuits, the rank and influence of an 
orator have not merely declined in the public estimation; 
but the "wore?" has been essentially changed and extended 
in its signification. The printed Oration, Lecture and 



•Q 



30 

Debate, now find their way to the firesides, and are there 
silently read by whole millions. Formerly, a small part of 
these readers would have travelled to Athens or Rome, to 
Paris or Richmond, to hear Demosthenes or Tully, Mira- 
BEAU or Henry. Or else, in order to make up their opinions 
as to the superiority of the one or the other, they would 
have made gaping and open-eyed inquiries, of some market 
returning neighbors, of all the particulars of their respective 
heights, shapes, attitudes, gestures, voices, tones, counte- 
nances, &c. The practical consequence of this universal 
printing, is, that readers, who never heard either of them, 
now venture to compare the modern Aeschines and Hor- 
tensius, with their more honey-tongued rivals ; and printed 
Eloquence has become a main element in the constitution 
of the word 'Orator.' It must be in this restricted and 
figurative sense only, that Webster can be compared with 
Clay. As Orators in the presence, there was no room for 
comparison. 

We have sufficiently contemplated our subject, in the 
character of a written or printed Orator. I have assigned 
him the second place only in this capacity. Let us con- 
sider him, a few moments, as a living, present, speaking 
Orator; as an Orator in its true, simple and original sense. 
I may have said enough also, of the degree of mere 
mind, which he displayed whilst actually speaking. Per- 
haps not. For I have thought and I now believe, that 
Henry Clay, in his highest oratorical efforts, did suggest 
and express positive ideas, which not only were never 
reported and which could never have been reported in 
words, but which would not have appeared in the very 
words and syllables actually used, even if they had been 
infallibly set down! His intonation, emphasis, pauses, 
expressions of features, attitudes, gestures, all spoke as 
Avell as — nay, sometimes better than the dry and naked 
words. Is this inconceivable ? Let it be remembered that 
these aids to the intelligibility and force of speech, are 
.. ^ 



31 

Nature's gifts and method, as much as the separate power 
of speech itself. Let it be borne in mind, too, that they 
were his readiest and favorite instruments, by especial gift 
from Nature, and used with a most dexterous cunning and 
skill, acquired by years of diligent practice. Nice phrase- 
ology and picturesque language were Mr. Webster's accus- 
tomed tools. And with them, he and the few such as he, 
in a short half line of monosyllables, could, at will, awaken 
in the minds of the readers and wholly outside of and 
unexpressed by these little words, associations as countless 
as the separate billows, and as sublime as the aggregate 
Ocean! I know — for I have felt — that Henry Clay did 
the same, with his native powers of Oratory ! 

In the efficiency of spoken eloquence — in the ability to 
attain the true end and purpose of speaking — whether in 
the dignified and deliberative Senate, the more tumultuous 
lower House, or before the ultimate 'sovereigns,' the great 
People themselves, he would be esteemed a rash man or a 
lover of paradox, who would name any American, living or 
dead, except that first Henry of Hanover, in competition 
with Henry Clay. He was, assuredly, very unequal in his 
displays of this supremacy. He spoke both too frequently 
and too carelessly of his fame in this particular to please, 
much less to astonish, in all his innumerable speeches. 
Besides; audiences always expect something from orators 
so famous, beyond any human power to accomplish. And, 
in truth, I presume he somewhat scorned that over-estimate, 
which he knew the majority of men place upon this talent. 
And, accordingly, I have frequently heard speakers, (Stock- 
ton, CoRWiN, Crittenden, and others,) who, in their best 
efforts, far excelled his on particular occasions, as well in 
the power of persuasion as of conviction. But then, I 
have heard him — and sometimes when one would least have 
expected it — speak, as I never heard man speak before ; as 
I never expect to hear man speak again! Their stirring 
appeals might well have reminded one, of the wild ratthng 



.D 



32 

of columns of Musketry, or even the deep and dreadful 
booming of the Artillery in some great Human Battle! 
But his higher and grander flight of Thoughts, his deeper 
and wider stir of Passions recalled the awful remembrance 
of the Lightnings swift, vivid and angular, with their 
crackling Thunders — Heaven's Artillery — flashing from 
cloud to cloud, from mountain-top to mountain-top, and 
scathing and rending, Hke stubble, their gnarled and flinty 
peaks, in some dark and high conflict of the maddened 
Elements. Such an indefinable sense of the super-human, 
did his mightiest efforts impart, to the bewildered fancy of 
the hearer! 

Nor was he, by any means, in this Power and Art, only 
sublime and grand. He possessed them, in all their varie- 
ties. As the topic and its varying occasions required, he 
could be simple and graceful; or mildly persuasive; or witty 
and comical; or sarcastic and biting; dryly intellectual and 
argumentative; tenderly pathetic, or sublimely impassioned. 
In short, he was a consummately great Orator, both 
naturally and as an artist. He possessed that inexplica- 
ble, magical power, to compel his audience to reciprocate 
his own sympathies and sentiments. And this is the sum 
total of the Power and Art of Oratory. 

There was the same difference, between the manly forti- 
tude of Clay and Webster, which we have observed, between 
that of the former and of Calhoun. And a yet more 
interesting and melancholy circumstance must again denote 
this superiority of Mr. Clay. We are informed by Hiram 
Ketchum, Esq., (one of Mr. Webster's most intimate, con- 
stant, and bosom friends,) that his disappointment in failing 
to obtain the recent nomination for the Presidency, most 
materially shortened his great and useful life. And Mr. 
Clay's physician gave it as his professional opinion, that the 
extraordinary labors and cares which he performed and 
suffered in the late threatened crisis, in which he saw our 
blessed and glorious Union, had diminished his span of 



.'ffi 



■a 



33 

existence by at least ten years. But Mr. Clay was often 
defeated, both for that nomuiation and in the elections before 
the people — shamefully in the latter cases, and dishonorably, 
as many yet believe, in the former. And yet, his own 
defeats, neither turned his fresh and warm patriotism into 
cold and sour misanthrop}^, on the one hand ; nor, on the 
other, were permitted to gnaw and feed upon the inner and 
precious sources of his life. On the contrary, mortified or 
angry or indignant at the treachery of pretended friends 
or at the misappreciation of his country, as he may at first 
have been, so far from his brave heart suffering these pas- 
sions, even to impair his constitution, I do not believe that 
he ever thereby lost a meal, or any part of his accustomed 
appetite for a meal. Indeed, immediately after his unex- 
pected and amazing defeat in 1844, he was invited to eat, 
and actually did eat in the greatest cheerfulness and amidst 
a general mirth of his own exciting, a Dinner, which an 
over-sanguine friend had caused to be prepared in anticipa- 
tion and in honor of his expected victory. It is very true, 
that, as old and almost idolizing friends, one after another, 
came sadly in, Mr. Clay was deeply and passionately moved. 
He would have been unsympathising towards them and 
callous in himself, if he had been otherwise. But although 
the Festival began in general gloom and with many in 
tears, ere the first course had been removed, the great 
object of their sympathy rallied himself and rallied the 
entire company. 

Being casually at Lexington, he told me, what I then 
saw, by his voice and manner, was the undisguised truth, 
that, "As much as he felt this disappointment on his 
own account, (if he knew his heart at all,) he felt it 
far more for the sake of his friends and his Country." 
Alas! for that country. What actual calamities and what 
threatened perils, would she not have escaped by a different 
result? — the calamities of a bloody foreign War, with its 
long train of miseries and crimes and the threatened peril 
5 



•D 



u 

of a Dissolution of our blessed Union, of their number. 
If, indeed, we have even yet escaped this last danger! 

Of Mr. Clay's Moral and Rehgious life, I shall say but a 
few words. I should speak of neither, if I did not know, 
that the one had been for years most slanderously and 
wilfully misrepresented, and the other, perhaps therefore, 
very generally misunderstood. That he was, in early man- 
hood, quite addicted to the excitements of Gaming and 
of other and smaller vices of fashionable life — as the social 
use of Wine, of Tobacco and Swearing — I freely and 
frankly admit. But, even they were magnified and exag- 
gerated by personal and party malice, to a degree which is 
disreputable to our Country and Institutions. The multi- 
tude and difficulty of his long series of labors, bespeak an 
industry, order and method in his habits of life, wholly 
incompatible with excess in either of the first named indul- 
gences. The use of profane language, " he reformed alto- 
gether," years before he died. For the other, I ' care not a 
pinch of snuff' and he cared still less. He resolutely, and 
with his characteristic independence, snuffed and smoked, 
in the face and before the eyes of Transcendental Manners, 
as long as he lived. As I have long ago become convinced, 
that he had too much self-respect, if no other restraining 
principle, to have been addicted to other vices, which the 
joint malice and hypocrisy of the world so love to hear, 
and upon the smallest evidences, to believe ; so I have here, 
too much self-respect, to enter upon their disproof. In 
regard to all such matters, he had, however, one real and 
serious fault. I have said that Mr. Clay was a man without 
art or guile in his life and character. He was also entirely 
too heedless of appearances, and of the consequent opinions 
and sayings of the world about him. 

Of his Religious character, it becomes me, (who make no 
profession of any,) to say still less. I shall, therefore, be 
yet more brief. That he did not profess to be religious 
during the greater part of his life, and that he did, at a 



■S 



@ — — ■ 

35 

specific time and place, make a public profession of his con- 
version, are, of themselves, very notable and memorable 
facts. They severally exemplify again his sincerity, truth- 
fulness and independence of nature, on the one hand, in not 
professing it, when he did not feel it; on the other, in 
making that declaration openly and publicly, when he did 
believe himself to be the recipient of such a blessing. 
These characteristics became vividly apparent in that self 
distrust and doubt, in which, upon his death-bed, he so often 
spoke of his own uncertainty of the sufficiency of his 
faith for salvation. This union of sincerity and humility 
was a very touching incident in his life. I have said, that 
by his own action, he made a distinct line of separation 
between his previous and subsequent positions on this sub- 
ject. This remark needs explanation, if not qualification. 

Religion is very much a matter of natural temperament, 
perhaps of physical constitution. It may be in all men to 
a certain and limited extent. But some persons are 
endowed with it, as a strong, natural sentiment. Long 
before Mr. Clay made any profession of Religion, and in 
the midst of his pohtical and worldly pursuits and pleasures, 
I thought I had observed in him, a vein, full and fervent, 
of this pious principle. I still think that he was of that 
cIhss of men, whose natures tend always to the earnest and 
devout worship of God. 

To sum up the whole of these elements of character in 
a more general view : Henry Clay was a man of singularly 
varied, yet singularly great physical, mental and moral 
faculties. He not only possessed many most remarkable 
powers, native and cultivated, in their highest grades, but 
he was so well and so healthily supplied with the minor and 
ordinary faculties of every-day-use, that it may be said; his 
assortment was complete. He might have had some which 
did not surpass the correspondent faculties of common men, 
but none of his own were deficient or imperfect, and no 
function was absent. 



36 

This peculiarly composite yet harmonious whole con- 
sisted too of elements, which are usually incompatible in 
their natures and are only congrous at all, by the rare 
proportions in which they may be mingled. lie was, for 
examples, sensitively impulsive, yet a most steadily working 
business man; with a hot and hasty temperament, yet a 
shrewd and sharp observer of men and their motives; ardent 
in his hopes and expectations, yet never dismayed with 
doubts, nor abandoned to despair; cheerful, even to 
gaiety, in his intercourse with men, but always having a 
strong undercurrent of solemn and feeling reverence to 
God; proudly conscious of his own complete and great 
innate powers, but as plodding, patient and persevering in 
his researches for extrinsic aids, as if he had been alike 
destitute and humble; eminently combative, yet the swiftest 
at pacification ; full of an earnest and impassioned interest 
and zeal, in behalf of his favorite measures — "as a father 
loveth his children " — and still, as ready as Abraham with 
his first born, to sacrifice any or all, whenever his highest 
passion (love of Country,) admonished his reason, that the 
supreme interest, for which he had given them their being, 
required that bereavement. 

And it was this most rare and most extraordinary collec- 
tion and combination, in himself, of all these various talents 
and qualities, more than even his wonderful special faculties, 
which so greatly distinguished this personage. Other 
Americans of his own times, have equalled, if not surpassed 
him, in all but two of his high powers. As we have seen, 
Calhoun excelled him decidedly, in his own sphere. Web- 
ster very far transcended him in many and in great respects. 
But, as a uhole man, Henry Clay, was (he greatest of the 
Triumvirate — nay — the greatest of his ^^ge ! They, like 
a pair of isolated Granite Obelisks, stately, massive and 
grand, in their simple unity of elements and proportions, 
yet resplendent and rich with the lettered and sculptured 
treasures of antique lore, arose highly above the low level 



37 

around them. But he, like a clustered and reeded Gothic 
Column, upswelliug to sustain some glorious Temple, in its sub- 
stance the purest marble, in its form many perfect parts wisely 
and curiously bound and blended into one, multiform yet single, 
complex yet consistent, slender yet substantial — towered 
above them all and excelled all, as much in strength and 
utility, as in grace and beauty! 

Of all the public men of our Country, this man was too 
(and this is his highest eulogy,) the most essentially and 
intensely National — American. He was the first-born of 
American Independence, and beginning life with our Insti- 
tutions, ' he grew with their growth and strengthened with 
their strength ' — as, indeed, they with and from his — 
until almost a perfect assimilation seems to have taken 
place in their mutual qualities. To my mind, Henry Clay 
has always appeared to be the most perfect representative or 
personification — the embodiment, — (if it is preferred,) of 
our National Character. If our Nation possesses any 
marked characteristics, (and our bitterest enemies aver, 
that they are the most distinguished,) they are a respect- 
able, not aristocratic origin; great self-rehance; an undy- 
ing love of independence; a courage, which fears no adver- 
sary; a genuine love of truth, right, honor, and all the 
manly virtues; a shrewd self-interest, which reaches after, 
and retains all substantial and practical benefits, whilst it 
too much disregards spiritual blessings; great common 
sense, in perceiving the means necessary to these ends, 
and an industry and energy, in their pursuit, which crosses 
oceans, passes deserts, overclimbs mountains, fills up 
valleys and perforates the rock-ribbed Earth. In short, 
our " Uncle Sam," is a brave, honest, truthful, eloquent, 
warmhearted, dashing, hard headed old fellow. And no 
truer sketch can be drawn of "Harry of the West." 

And what shall future generations say of such a char- 
acter ? Unless the principles of Civilization and Liberty 
shall alike perish from the Earth — Tradition, long ages 



^ — — "^ Si 

38 

hence, at her thousand firesides, will whisper with delight to 
her Httle listeners his actions, words, mien and manners; 
History, on her tablets of brass, will grave the clear Record 
of his services to his nation and his race; Poetry, wedded 
to Seraphic Melody, will chant his immortal praises ; the 
deep Canvass, like Mirrors, will glow with memorial reflec- 
tions of his person and achievements ; the Marble Quarries 
too,from their their cold white bosoms, (like the All-enclosing 
apocalyptic graves, with their formless dust, at Resur- 
rection,) shall renew and reveal, in beauty and almost in 
life again, to the fond Statuary and the World, his pale, 
long-buried image ; and Sculptured Monuments shall stand, 
grand as the Pyramids, and everlasting as the Mountains, 
to commemorate to all nations, races and ages of Men, the 
name and life of this, the Model Statesman of this, the 
"Model Republic!" 



^aMMMMMMnoMMMiBiii^MttilSIBttl^^ 



FUNERAL ORATION. 



ON TH E 



CHABAfTEB, LIFE, A.\I) PUBLIP SERVICES 



OK 



HENRY CLAY. 



Delivered iu Cinciuiiati, Nov. 2, 1953, 



AT THE REQIEST OF THE 



CLAY MONyi/iENTAL ASSOCIAIIOH OF OHIO. 



BY CHARLES ANDERSON. 



CINCINNATI: 

HEN FRANKLIN OFFICE PRINT, 
1853. 





; IN MEMORIAM. 










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